


Aftermath

by mktellstales



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hospital, Kidnapped John, M/M, Make a choice, Mary's truth comes out, Moriarty is back, Moriarty's Games, Multiple Pov, Season/Series 04, Tension, agra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:50:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mktellstales/pseuds/mktellstales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock thought he'd eliminated Moriarty's web, and he thought the man himself was gone, but is he? And if he isn't, what is the game he plans to play this time? Whatever it is, Sherlock intends to win, and John was forced to forgive Mary, and without question to Sherlock's intentions, he did, but there's no forgiveness there. He only wants to move on, and be with the man he'd never meant to fall in love with in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Authors Note

Hello! It's been quite a while since I posted anything, and it's safe to say I've been itching to!  
But, I really wanted to pay special attention and take extra time as I write now, so I've been working on this once since April, and it's almost finished - just polishing up the second half. As usual, I can't give you a solid timeframe of when part two will be up, as I only have the weekends now to work on my writing now, but as I said, it's almost finished, so shouldn't be too terribly long.

 

This particular piece was heavily inspired and aided by the newest Mumford and Sons album, so that may come across a little - haha!   
It does have both John's POV and Sherlock's as well, though they may not necessarily go in any particular pattern.

Really, I do hope you enjoy it - and if you do, let me know! 

-MK


	2. ONE

Storm clouds hung low over London and rain pattered down on and off since early that morning. Late into the evening Sherlock Holmes, blue, silk dressing gown wrapped over his trousers and grey button down, stood at the window of two-two-one-b Baker Street where the droplets slid down across his pale reflection. His day was long, bled over from the night before when Mycroft's black car scraped it's tires against the curb and his older brother stepped out; his shining shoes swept over the pavement as he made his way to the door, and when he made it up the stairs, the tip of his umbrella tapping against each one, he politely knocked. That was how Sherlock knew the visit wasn't going to be his usual one of annoyance and arrogance, and how he knew the thick manila folder he spotted tucked underneath his arm was one of the last pieces of the puzzle he'd been putting together for months; information salvaged from ash, every word confirmation of what he thought he already knew.   
Beyond himself in the window a shadow crossed the street and disappeared into the gush from the gutters just as the hasty click of a latch, the creak of old stairs underneath tired, anxious feet and the cry of a worn out door came together in the song that was John Watson. Sherlock turned slowly, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. John stood, weary, and droplets of cold rain water fell from his ashen gold hair to the tip of his dull, brown shoes. He leaned against the open frame of the door and looked across the crag between he and Sherlock and sighed. 

"Could I stay here tonight?" John finally asked.

"Of course."

John's eyes closed in relief and he shut the door behind him. He toed off his shoes, took off his coat and shook the rain from his hair.  
"Thank you," he said as he crossed to the red chair by the fireplace, his chair; the unspoken symbol that told him he was always welcome there - no need to ask. "It's just, I couldn't stay home with her."

"I don't need an explanation." Sherlock said, sitting across from him in his own chair. 

"I feel as though you do seeing as you're the one to ask me to forgive her."

"She's your wife."

"I don't know who she is. I can't look at her, can't touch her or even listen to her breathe as we sleep." He took a breath, and dug his fingers into the arms of the chair, "You didn't know? You know everything."

"I didn't know that." he said, and then in a whisper almost to himself, "I didn't want to know."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing."

"It means something, Sherlock. You wouldn't have said it otherwise."

"Is this why you came here; to pick a fight with me rather than with Mary?"

"I'm trying to understand your need to lie to me. You wouldn't even let me see the flash drive."

"If I've ever lied to you it was because you didn't need to know."

"Mary says the same thing."

Sherlock dropped his head into his hands, "what is it you'd like to hear from me, then? That my feelings for you clouded how I saw her? That I saw how happy she made you, and I liked seeing you that way? That I felt guilty for what I had done, and thought that if I liked Mary then you would forgive me?" 

The two men looked at each other before John slipped away from the chair and crouched in front of Sherlock, a hand on his knee.  
"I always would have forgiven you," he said.

Sherlock's head drummed. He smelled John's hours at the clinic; the disinfectant of soap, latex gloves, the chicken sandwich he ate for lunch and then again for dinner. He smelled Mary's perfume from when she tried to hug him after he came home and John stood there, trying to work up the nerve to hug her back, and faint traces of rosemary from the shampoo of his morning shower. 

The wind picked up outside and tossed the rain against the windows without care, and the drumming got louder. It drowned out his rational thoughts, the ones that told him to stop John's hand from sliding up his leg, to stop him from slowly rising to his feet and to stop him from caging Sherlock in his chair - trapped like a bird who knew the hunter was coming, but couldn't look away from the shining bait held in front of him.

John's body, though not touching him, was heavy. He licked his lips as though he was sure, but Sherlock saw the hesitancy in his eyes, the same look the night before Christmas when John, preparing to go back to Mary the next day, took Sherlock's hand in his as they passed in the hallway to the bedrooms and pushed Sherlock against the wall and kissed him, slow and long and just a little bit sad.

"I just needed to do that", he'd said and let Sherlock go. 

John's fingers now trailed at the buttons of Sherlock's shirt and his breath hitched. Sherlock wanted- he needed- but he couldn't.

"John," he said in protest just as John's lips threatened to take his, "I can't."

"Ever?" John asked against them, a hint of bitter annoyance underneath his breathlessness. 

"I don't know."

There was too much on the line, too much he needed still to finish the puzzle and then destroy it for good.

"Right. Yea." John said and returned to his chair from Sherlock's lap. "So any luck on Moriarty?"

"I've found a few things."

Sherlock sighed internally, and felt the drums start to quite. He could do this with John; talk about the bad things in the world, the things that kept them apart, that would likely always keep them apart. Sherlock promised him once that when it was over they could be together, but he had no idea if it would ever end. 

"Do you think he's alive?" John asked.

"I watched him shoot himself in the head. He was dead."

"I watched you too."

They fell silent as the storm outside angered - thunder shook the walls and lightning cracked against the worn out maze along John's face.

"You're tired," Sherlock said.

"I'm fine."

"You were up at five, in the clinic by quarter to. You stayed until seven this evening even though you locked up at five-thirty. You should have used that time for a kip rather than useless paperwork."

"Am I supposed to tell you that you're brilliant now?"

"You usually do."

John gave a laugh that turned into a long winded yawn, "that doesn't make you brilliant," he said when he finished.

"No, but so many other things do."

Sherlock grinned and John gave one last chuckle before he rose from his chair, "goodnight, Sherlock."

"Goodnight, John."

John's footsteps were lay through the kitchen and the fifth step of the staircase to the bedroom squawked as it always did when John set his weight to it. Alone again, Sherlock flipped open the top file from the stack he'd made on the desk with a delicate twitch of his index finger. She stared back at him through a photograph pinned to the thin papers behind. The woman who taunted him with her victory every moment she could, the woman who no one knew. Sherlock now her back against the iron gate of her escape and he was going to set a fire- one that would consume her and all of her lies, even if it trapped him and John inside the hot gates forever. 

***

The storm left the sky new and bright as it washed away what remained of the night and faded into morning. John didn't draw the blinds when he'd gone upstairs and the sun crawled along the length of his uncovered body until it beat bright over his closed eyes. He covered his head with the pillow but soon gave up trying to find sleep again. He made it peacefully until the sun came and that was something unachieved in months. He stretched across the warmed bed, his body too tired to do anything else. Beside him his phone sat untouched. When he left Mary the night before, toweling off from her shower and readying herself for an early night in bed, he didn't tell her where he was going or even that he was going at all. Though Mary surely had to know that there was only one place he would be. 

He hadn't been to the flat at Baker Street since he was coerced into giving his wife undeserved forgiveness. He tried to offer his help with Morairty but Sherlock insisted there wasn't any help to give, and John, not knowing what else to do, believed him. But last night wasn't about help. He sat in his home, in a low back chair he hated, surrounded by photos of a woman he didn't know and a man he wasn't sure he knew either, and an itch started to set in. The itch to run, to feel his heart race and his breath short. To feel the sweat of danger and the pin prick of fear. It was the itch to be with Sherlock and see the blazing brilliance of his mind, to stand beside him and all at once feel powerful and insignificant. 

John gave himself another minute in bed and then shuffled down the stairs and into the bathroom. He peered through the crack in the door to Sherlock's room and saw the bed undisturbed; unsurprisingly unslept in. He turned on the tap for the shower and let the water run as he undressed. He stepped into the porcelain an relaxed under the hot spray. His own shampoo was long gone from the bottom shelf of the wire basket that hung from the shower head, so he reached for Sherlock's. An almond oil and Shea butter mixture that made his hair too soft and fluffy, like the fur of a golden lab he once owned. 

He rinsed his hair, finished his shower and changed into the clothes he brought down with him. He wandered to the kitchen, the hardwood cold underneath his warm, bare feet, to make a cup of tea. With the kettle set to boil, John dug through the canister of tea kept on the counter, but stopped just short of the Darjeeling he was looking for when he felt sharp eyes at the back of his neck. He turned to see Sherlock silhouetted in the morning light of the window, dressed the same as the night before except for his dressing gown replaced with a jet black jacket. He looked tired and John was certain he hadn't gotten any sleep. 

An uneasy chill ran through him as Sherlock stood staring at him, his face cold and serious and almost...disappointed. John stepped forward out of the kitchen to see what might be wrong, but there wasn't any need to ask when he saw Mary from the corner of his eye, sat in front of the lit fireplace in a chair she'd occupied once before. 

"What is this?" He asked

Sherlock took another step forward, "Mary is going to tell you the truth you need to know, then she's going to tell me what I need to know. 

"What does she know that you need to know? When did you decide all of this?" 

"Just ask her what you've been too afraid to know. It's the last chance you're going to have."

"Last- Sherlock, what the hell is going on?"

Sherlock stood before him, and closed what little space there as he advanced forward until his hand was able to close over John's, though it only hovered near "Just ask her." he urged. 

John closed his eyes and opened them again to face his wife. She looked small against the mighty back drop of the raised mantle and the chaos of papers that were behind her. He wanted to see the woman he thought he'd fallen in love with, but all he could see was the lie she'd tried to cover up, and the ones he didn't know about yet. 

"John," she said, quiet and gentle like the very first time she ever whispered it in the dark.

"No. You don't get to say anything. I'll ask the questions and you'll answer them; that's all."

"Alright."

He drew in a deep breath and scratched the pads of his fingers against the side of his jeans. He could feel Sherlock behind him, could hear his mind as it turned at a million miles per second, but he ignored it.

"What's your real name?" he finally asked.

"Danielle Marie Reynolds." 

"What are the initials on that flash drive, then?"

"They're who I was before I was Mary; Ashley, Giselle, Ruth, Allison." 

"Where were you born?" 

"Somers Point, New Jersey." she answered, the English of her accent gone like she had flipped a switch. "My family is still there; my mom, dad, three sisters."   
"And what did you do for the CIA?" Sherlock asked from behind him.

"Counter intelligence." 

"And you were trained to assassinate?" 

"Yes." 

"How many people did you successfully eliminate?" 

"That were government sanctioned? Three." 

"How many weren't?" John asked.

"Nine." 

"Jesus," he mumbled under his breath and pressed his thumb and forefinger into the center of his forehead. He stepped away from her toward the window to breathe in the air and bring his head back down to reality. He knew she had done things, he knew that she wasn't the woman he thought he married, but he had no idea just the kind of woman she really was. 

"And when did you meet Moriarty?" he heard Sherlock ask.

John's stomach flipped at the name and it flipped again when his mind put together all the words to understand what Sherlock asked, "what?" 

"I was in Russia; eight years ago. He crashed my party."

"I'm sorry," John interrupted, as he turned away from the window and back toward the two of them. His face was red hot, his heart beat fast, "Sherlock, how long have you known that my wife, the mother of my child, worked for Moriarty?"

"Since I asked you to forgive her." 

"And you didn't bloody think that was something you should share with me?" 

"I told you-"

"Not your secrets to tell, yea." 

"And John, you may want to ask her about the baby." 

John turned from Sherlock to Mary. Her eyes were down at where her feet tapped against the floor, "What about it?" he asked her. 

Mary tapped her toes again and pulled a small pocket knife from the pocket of her coat. John watched her flip it open and lift the bottom of her shirt until her belly was exposed. She touched the blade to the roundest part of her bump and started to cut away what looked so much like flesh, but fell to the floor like scrap pieces of rubber.

"It was Moriarty's idea," she said, "to make sure you stayed with me. Those days before the wedding, the way you looked at Sherlock - I was afraid you would leave."

John though he might be sick, but he swallowed hard and drew in a shallow breath, "and what were you going to do when it was time to have the baby?"

"I was going to have an accident - he wasn't going to make it."

"The sonograms?"

"Someone else's."

"Christ."

"You actually turned out to be quite helpful. Always being too busy to come to my appointments, too lovelorn and angry to fuck me. You were so pre-occupied with the life you'd left behind that you cared quite little about the life that was in front of you."

John sat down on the sofa with his head between his knees, "Why me?" he asked. 

"I was at the pool. It was my scope aimed at your head. I admired you. I followed you for months, those were my orders. There wasn't any place you went than I wasn't there too. And when Sherlock jumped, and Jim was gone, I still wanted to be with you."

Mary's eyes were wet with tears, "I loved you," she said. "I watched you with those women, and I wanted to be them. Truth was I wanted to be more than who I was, and you let me become that; Mary Morstan was Mary Watson, and I liked her - I wanted to stay her."

John didn't know what to say to her, he didn't know what he should think. His entire life with Mary was a lie, but it wasn't only a lie on her part - John lied too. He lied the first time he said he loved her, he lied all those nights he told her he wasn't thinking of someone else, and he lied when he said that having a baby would be the best thing for them. Truth was, as unbelievable as it all was, John was quite relieved that part was a lie too. 

"That's why you went after Magnusson?" he heard Sherlock ask. "Thinking Jim was dead, he was the last person to know who you really are? You wanted to kill Danielle and AGRA forever?"

"Yes, and if you hadn't already figured it out you were to, and you would tell John, so I saw an opportunity that night you found me."

"Pity I survived."

"Yes, it is." she said.

"After Magnusson was gone and I was gone, and you realized Moriarty wasn't dead, were you going to kill him too?"

"I had to."

"So you were going to murder three people, one of them my best friend, to keep playing house with me?" John asked from where he still sat across the other side of the room. 

"The other two weren't very good men, were they? And I believe your best friend, killed one of them for me." 

John caught Sherlock's gaze as he crossed over to him "do you have any more questions for Mary?" he asked, gently.

"No." John crossed his arms over his chest, "just get her out of here."

Sherlock nodded, and lifted Mary up from the chair by the crook of her arm. "Mycroft's men are outside. They're going to take you somewhere safe."

He passed her to a man who waited outside on the steps and then closed the door on her. He turned to where John stood and stretched out his arm with just the slightest brush of his finger against John's shoulders that made him jump.

"John-"

"Don't, Sherlock. You knew all of this and you said nothing to me! You told me to forgive her, to work things out with her and I killed myself trying to, but you were using me, buying time until you were ready for this dramatic display you just put on."

"I wanted to make sure I was right before you found anything out."

"Were you trying to protect me again? You knew you were right and you should have told me the moment you knew. If you ever lov - mmm - " 

John stopped himself . It wasn't a word he could speak out loud, not one he could bring himself to say, and besides the room was too small for him to breathe. Sherlock, as usual, took up all of the space, and John couldn't be there anymore. He found his shoes in an angry blur and his keys on the shelf by the door, 

"I'll be out." he said.

"You shouldn't-"

"I'll be fine." 

The door slammed and his feet the stairs hard as he ran down them and into the cool afternoon air. John caught a cab at the end of the block and told the cabbie behind the wheel to take him anywhere - he didn't care where. How could Sherlock lie to him like that? How did he let him keep him in the dark again?

John was dropped off at a pub a few blocks away and he paid his fare. He sat on a wobbly, squeaky stool when he got inside. It was small, and the lights were dim and it was quiet, filled mostly with other men who looked just as broken as John felt. He forwent his usual pint of amber ale for a sweet, dry whisky that he held between his fingers just below his lips. Growing up thing weren't always easy - his parents hated the sight of each other and had a difficult hiding it from their children, but where his sister numbed her pain with booze and girls, John joined groups in a search for normalcy; drama club, glee club, the debate team and eventually the army. 

John finally tasted the liquid in his glass as he tried to pinpoint the moment in his life that brought him to where he was. Was it when women because a tally mark in his notebook to compare with his army mates or was it the first time a desperate, lonely kiss with another man turned into love. Was it when he was shot, when he chose to walk through that park next to Bart's, was it the moment he met Sherlock or was it when he let himself fall in love with him? 

He sat through three more drinks before he paid his check and went outside. The sun started to set sometime while he was inside, and he pulled his mobile from the inner pocket of his jacket as he walked along the cracks in the pavement. There were several missed messages from Sherlock:

Come back - SH  
Getting pissed isn't going to solve anything -SH  
John... -SH  
I didn't have a choice but to keep it from you -SH  
Come home -SH  
John? -SH  
Please? -SH  
I'm sorry -SH

John sighed and looked up to see he was back at Baker Street, no matter what, John would always end up back at Baker Street, and he would always forgive Sherlock. He went upstairs to see Sherlock sat in his chair, fingers steepled underneath his chin and his eyes closed. 

"You didn't return my texts," Sherlock said.

"Nope." 

John pulled his jacket off and tossed it on the back of the chair. He watched Sherlock's eyes open and saw the fire and the fear hidden by his lids.  
"until we've figured out this new game with Moriarty, until he's been defeated, I need to be in contact with you."

"I was fine, Sherlock."

"And what if you weren't?" Sherlock yelled and jumped from his chair, "don't you understand?"

"Understand what?" John asked as he stepped forward, their anger inches away from each other, "what am I meant to understand, Sherlock?"

"You are-"

"I'm what?"

His gut burned with an anxious fire that he was sure was going to be doused in disappointment like it had been so many times before. Sherlock lowered to the flats of his feet, and no longer towered over John.

"Everything," he said calmly.

John closed the small space left between them and tilted Sherlock's head with a gentle thumb under his chin. He waited until Sherlock met his gaze and then pressed their lips together. They kissed slowly at first, and fell to their knees against the hard floor where John pulled at the buttons of Sherlock's shirt and Sherlock pushed John's jumper over his head. Their mouths started to ache to taste everywhere they could and they bent and folded into each other; their shadows cast along the drawn drapes from the lamplight. 

A night, even if that was all they had, would heal the fissures they'd left on each other; sew up the still bleeding scars. 

They fell again, Sherlock's back on the rug, his chest pulsing with the fight to bring himself back from the brink of orgasm, and John above him, acquiesced to each of the commanded pleas that escaped Sherlock's lips. John was stunned at how lost Sherlock was. He imagined Sherlock would lay John open like a specimen on a slide, would stop to take notes of the all the awkward places John tried to hide, but it was as if he wasn't even there; eyes closed, breathe wound tight, as if Sherlock couldn't exist beyond the pleasure he was wrapped in. 

John reached down and pulled Sherlock up into his lap, he grabbed him by the sides of his face and kissed him hard until they both were at the brink and couldn't come back again.


End file.
